Adoption: Prefer Indians over foreigners, says HC

The Bombay High Court has held that Indian parents resident within the country should be preferred and given priority over NRIs, overseas Indians residents or foreigners, when a child is put up for adoption.

A bench of Justices V M Kanade and S C Gupte asked authorities like State Adoption Resource Authority (SARA) and Adoption Recommendation Committee (ARC) today, to strictly follow adoption guidelines issued in 2011, as per which children put up for adoption must be first shown to Indian parents, before they are shown to NRIs, overseas Indian parents or foreigners.

The court stated so while dismissing a petition filed by a Pune-based couple who wanted to adopt a girl child from a Pune-based adoption centre, which had already shown the same child to a USA-based Indian couple earlier.

The bench dismissed the Pune-based couple's petition which said that the adoption agency had shown the girl to them on the State Adoption Resource Authority's (SARA) recommendation.

SARA and ARC were also asked to follow the 80:20 proportion in favour of Indian parents, where first preference is given to Indian parents and a child put up for adoption is shown to foreign parents later, only if Indian parents decline to adopt the child.

"Though there is no specific number mentioned in the guidelines about the number of Indian parents to whom the child should be shown, we are of the view that within a period of three or four weeks, the child should be shown to as many Indian parents as possible," said the bench in a recent order.

Only if the child is not accepted by Indian parents and adoption agencies conclude that the child is unlikely to be adopted by Indian parents, should the child be shown to foreign parents, the bench further ruled.